In the summertime earlier than a tricky re-election contest in 2012, President Barack Obama was dropping assist from Latino voters who known as him “deporter in chief.” Then he signed a sweeping govt order to defend a whole bunch of 1000’s of younger undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Luis V. Gutiérrez, an Illinois Democrat and former congressman, recalled that in his district within the Chicago space, some Latinos celebrated the second within the streets. “In all places I went, right here’s what individuals mentioned — ‘Now we’ll vote for him,’” he mentioned. “I swear to God. That’s how necessary that was for him politically.”
Twelve years later, President Biden seemed to be making an attempt to copy that transfer.
Mr. Biden on Tuesday drew cheers and a number of other standing ovations from a room of about 200 individuals, together with congressional Democrats and immigrant-rights leaders from throughout the nation, as he unveiled an order increasing authorized protections for undocumented spouses of Americans. He evoked Mr. Obama’s highly effective second by asserting it at an occasion commemorating the anniversary of the previous president’s 2012 govt motion for younger immigrants, framing his proposal as a solution to preserve households collectively.
“I refuse to consider that to guard our border now we have to stroll away from being an American,” he mentioned, including that the nation had been revitalized for generations by immigrants. “We are able to each safe the border and supply authorized pathways for households.”
Information of Mr. Biden’s order drew widespread reward even earlier than it was introduced, together with from Latino and immigrant rights advocates and from some former critics who had simply weeks in the past denounced him as “Border Shutdown” Biden.
“That is the Biden administration listening to younger individuals, to voters of shade who’ve been demanding a pro-immigrant message on immigration,” mentioned Bruna Bouhid-Sollod, senior political director of the immigrant rights group United We Dream Motion. “For these of us who’re immediately impacted, this has all the time been about preserving households collectively.”
However beneath the celebration lies appreciable uncertainty. It stays unclear what this choice will imply for Mr. Biden’s 2024 presidential marketing campaign and whether or not he’ll have the ability to reset the narrative on a problem that has to date been dominated by his Republican rival, Donald J. Trump.
In contrast to Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden is contending with a a lot completely different panorama on immigration.
The president is dealing with strain from members of his personal get together, in addition to Hispanic voters, lots of whom wish to see each more durable enforcement and higher pathways to citizenship. Republicans have been ratcheting up their rhetoric as they’ve moved in lock step in charge Mr. Biden for what they describe because the chaos on the border. Even earlier than Mr. Biden unveiled his govt motion, Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration insurance policies, known as it “amnesty for unlawful aliens throughout a border invasion.”
Again in 2012, beneath strain from a nationwide immigrant rights motion, Mr. Obama signed his govt motion as his administration rushed to pre-empt an analogous legislative proposal from Senator Marco Rubio, then a younger and rising Republican star from Florida.
Mr. Rubio was tacking to the left of his get together to offer work authorizations for Dreamers, the younger undocumented immigrants introduced into the nation illegally as kids. In an indication of how a lot the political waters have shifted, Mr. Rubio has now fallen in line behind Mr. Trump as he seeks to turn into his choose for operating mate.
Mr. Biden has been criticized by Latino leaders, immigrant rights activists and progressives as taking part in an excessive amount of into far-right calls for. Democratic leaders and strategists mentioned it was too early to say how a lot his newest motion would energize Democrats, significantly after the president’s govt order this month that drastically curbed asylum for migrants when border crossings surge.
Chris Newman, a longtime immigrant rights chief, mentioned Mr. Biden’s order might nonetheless be a watershed second. The president, he mentioned, would wish to ship a message highly effective sufficient to provoke public opinion in favor of the coverage, which might assist him on the marketing campaign path and in its protection, as it’s more likely to be challenged in courtroom.
“The efficiency is as necessary because the politics and the coverage,” mentioned Mr. Newman, the authorized director and basic counsel for the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community, a labor group based mostly in Los Angeles. It can additionally rely, he argued, on Mr. Biden having the ability to ship on different types of reduction for different undocumented immigrant teams.
Mr. Obama’s govt motion created the Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. It supplies work and examine permits for undocumented immigrants introduced into the nation illegally as kids, in the event that they cross legal background checks and meet sure necessities. Its impression was quickly felt throughout the nation. However that initiative — which at its peak lined some 800,0000 immigrants — remains to be in limbo within the courts, and new candidates can not enroll.
Mr. Biden’s order defending undocumented spouses is anticipated to profit roughly 500,000 individuals.
Mr. Biden’s supporters and allies say the president has been navigating the thorny subject of immigration all through a lot of his profession. In 2020, Mr. Biden, who served as Mr. Obama’s vp, needed to straddle a wonderful line between invoking Mr. Obama’s legacy on well being care and the economic system, whereas distancing himself from the massive spike in deportations beneath the Obama administration.
Mr. Biden helped negotiate the Dream Act, which sought a pathway to citizenship for individuals introduced into the nation illegally as kids, when it got here closest to passing Congress in 2010. Three years later, he labored with Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to push complete immigration reform laws via the Senate, although that effort was finally stalled by far-right Republicans who known as it “amnesty.”
“He has been in the course of all of this since then,” mentioned Héctor Sánchez Barba, president of the Latino rights group Mi Familia Vota, including that the president was at instances at Mr. Obama’s facet in conversations over DACA.
In latest months, Mr. Biden has sought to flip the narrative on Republicans, with marketing campaign adverts, a go to to the U.S.-Mexico border and a push for bipartisan laws, which Republicans have twice blocked. Selling a type of Senate proposals at a dinner with South Carolina Democrats in January, Mr. Biden urged he was severe about enforcement, saying, “If that invoice had been the regulation at the moment, I’d shut down the border proper now and repair it rapidly.”
On Tuesday, the Biden administration pushed again on the notion that the newest govt order was meant to offset the final one, and marketing campaign officers and allies previewed their new message on immigration shifting ahead: Mr. Biden is working to maintain households collectively, whereas Mr. Trump has ripped them aside. The president’s occasion celebrating the Obama administration’s immigration milestone got here simply days after he and Mr. Obama shared a stage at a Los Angeles fund-raiser, embracing and joking with each other.
Within the White Home briefing earlier within the day, Mr. Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre linked their legacies. “There’s a historical past, if you’ll, concerning the president wanting to guard American households, wanting to guard Americans — and that is what you see on this announcement,” she mentioned.
In his response, Mr. Trump revisited his hard-line rhetoric on immigration at a day rally in Racine, Wis. “All an unlawful alien has to do to enroll in his new program is a sham marriage,” Mr. Trump mentioned, as the gang chanted “ship them again!”
Immigration and the southern border are significantly central issues for Republican and unbiased voters within the 2024 presidential marketing campaign. However some Democratic pollsters and strategists have warned that it is perhaps too late to sway these voters who say Mr. Trump is healthier at dealing with immigration than Mr. Biden.
Nonetheless, in a single sense, Mr. Biden’s most up-to-date motion to guard undocumented spouses might be a sport changer. The American Enterprise Immigration Coalition, which represents a whole bunch of firms and helps Mr. Biden’s order, has predicted that the newest coverage might assist Mr. Biden in battleground swing states. In Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, an estimated whole of greater than 300,000 voters dwell in “blended standing” households, or properties with not less than one undocumented individual.
Mr. Gutiérrez, the previous Illinois congressman, mentioned polls weren’t accounting for what he known as the “X-factor” of those latest actions — how briskly phrase of mouth would possibly unfold amongst mixed-status Mexican American and Central American households who would profit.
“This can carry loads of pleasure, loads of happiness, and the very best factor it’ll do is carry hope,” he mentioned.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Simon J. Levien contributed reporting.
